


the wounds they gave us

by AnnCherie



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Bulimia, Child Abuse, Divorce, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Multi, Past Sexual Assault, please be warned there are a lot of triggers, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:34:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29224014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnCherie/pseuds/AnnCherie
Summary: poetry about the trauma of the core four-- blair, serena, nate, dan(prequel + season one)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	the wounds they gave us

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE NOTE THE TRIGGERS ABOVE

* * *

From the English assignment notebook of Nate Archibald sophomore year

_ My thickest of masks _

_ Put on a smile and cover me up _

_ Devour me so I can live in myself _

_ Die in myself, be myself _

_ Because I’m not made for these pretenders _

_ I laugh when they laugh _

_ I talk when they talk _

_ Thank you, my mask _

_ They don’t notice a thing _

_ But come off my mask _

_ When those I need are near _

_ Please, try not to linger _

_ ‘Cause I’m not made for these pretenders _

He writes this in the middle of his high on Carter Baizen’s return, before he’s betrayed and told by the universe how stupid he was for thinking he could leave the Upper East Side and come out. Come out as what? He asked himself. Gay? He was in love with Serena. But Carter-- Carter had taken him by surprise, had left butterflies, had made Chuck jealous. No, it was better to pretend, to let people see the straight side of him. Hadn’t he been part of enough scandals already?

_ Obligation from birth easily breaks _

_ Humans becoming so fickle and vain _

_ It’s a sad truth, we’re surrounded by fakes _

_ Round by the cradle or using a cane _

_ The people you love never act just mild _

_ Being so open can never be wise _

_ No pain is worse than the pain of a child _

_ How can red blood distinguish bonding ties _

_ Good intentions are the devil’s best friend _

_ Parents fall into this trap all the time _

_ Punishment now may not help in the end _

_ The balance shifts with the slightest of crime _

_ If humans are born to love and be loved _

_ Why by his father is a young one shoved? _

The last poem seems too bare. Nate crumples the paper and throws it away. Maybe he is too good at pretending.

  
  


* * *

from the blog of Serena Vanderwoodsen:

_ Who is at fault when the terrible force of lightning strikes the earth and ravages it's forest with fire?  _

_ Well, the lightning was only acting upon its nature. _

_ I mean,  **I suppose** , the lightning could have released itself cloud to cloud, consenting pressurized molecules of oxygen and water taking it in, but the lightning— well, it was only acting upon its nature. It's the  **earth's** fault for being conductive. The  **earth** was the one that  **made** the lightning how it is. _

_ We don't teach our men not to rape, we teach our women to wear more.  _

_ We don't teach our boys to listen to no, we tell our girls 'don't be whores'. _

_ We call ourselves human, as if it means that we adhere to different morals than the harshest laws of nature, but in society the word  **victim** is a lie. _

_ Ask the girls of Constance if they were even allowed to cry. _

She hits “post”. She cries some more, as if she hadn’t cried enough after writing it. She leaves a voicemail on her phone before turning it off, “ _ If you’re a news outlet, I won’t be taking interviews until Monday. If you’re Constance, no I will not retract or amend the post. If you’re a friend, let me have the weekend alone. If you’re Chuck Bass or on the Bass legal team, fuck you.” _

* * *

From the secret diary of Blair Waldorf during Junior Year

_ Soft flesh, wrapped around bone _

_ Supple, inviting, and warm _

_ Curves gracefully composing a masterpiece _

_ Lines in every direction _

_ But when the sculpted figure speaks _

_ It begins to suffocate with insecurity _

_ Choke on it’s vainful pride _

_ And drown in it’s torrent of volatile emotion _

_ Inside the empty shell is darkness _

_ Palpable, breathing hell _

_ Something waiting to swallow you live _

_ It is the most beautiful tragedy _

_ A horrible and crafty machination _

_ A force of femininity _

“Choose a dessert!” Her mother screams at her, crueler than anything she’s ever done. Blair would rather Eleanor slap her across the face, rather her shoot a bullet into her chest. Anything but this, the forceful reminder that she was nothing more than a body to her mother, a fashion form for her dresses, a doll. Something that, when disobeyed, could be punished with the harshest of conditions.  What Eleanor is really saying is,  _ Know your place. Sit on the floor with your head in the toilet and feel the weight of the world crush you. Think about killing yourself, about dying slowly just to be skinny and to stop feeling. Vomit until you can’t breathe, and then come and try in gasps to tell me I’m not a perfect mother. _

But her mother has divorce papers, and while Blair is sixteen she thinks she understands the gravity of that, so she forgives her.

  
  


_ This ash won’t come off, it’s rubbing into my skin _

_ The fire is singeing my flesh _

_ I wish I could save you, take away that match _

_ But my help can’t come from where I’m at _

_ ‘Cause my love for you is like a flame _

_ Now that it’s lit I can’t take it back _

_ So to keep it from smoking, burning up all my life _

_ I’ve got to drown, drown, drown it out _

_ The fire will flicker and crackle fizz _

_ Turn from white to orange to red _

_ Until all that’s left is blackened cold wood _

_ This match won’t relit once it’s gone _

_ And maybe one day healing water will come _

_ Life will grow from the dead, sterile ground _

_ But my love for you is like a flame _

_ And now that it’s lit I can’t take it back _

_ So to keep it from smoking, burning up all my life _

_ I’ve got to drown, drown, drown you out _

Forgiveness in the sake of the word love is something she’s learned too easily after her mother, and it carries over into Chuck. God how she wished her father had gotten her in the divorce.

* * *

Dan Humphrey, English composition Sophomore year at St. Jude’s.

_ I _

_ The indent in your finger will make you laugh when you are too exhausted to cry, because you still absentmindedly touch it with a frequency you had never noticed until now. You will think, “I never even had the ring that long,” as if five, ten, or twenty years isn’t enough time when you can drive down a new road once only to take it every time you go in that direction. _

_ II _

_ There’s a ‘road’ you love to travel so often that you don’t know how long it’s even existed, just that you’ve always known about it. They’ve put up street signs with your name on them, but after a while you realize they have his name, too. Townspeople will find this comforting and romantic. Tourists won’t be so sure. _

_ III _

_ You’re not certain if the both of you are an intersection. The sort that meet powerfully for a brief moment day in and day out before stretching further out to others. It will sound funny, but you will want to be a dead end. Roads that stop and collide into a home where they stay and your ring isn’t lying in some dresser drawer like a dog in the backyard. Roads that end in “I love you” and comfortable deaths. _

His mother is gone. Jenny is in tears almost every night, trying to hide the crying with the sound of her sewing machine. His father is demure and strumming depressing chords all the time. He wants to take the train to Hudson to yell and scream at his mother for what she’s doing to the family. Just the family, he tries to think. I’m stronger than them. I’m smarter than them. I don’t miss her.

But God does he ache.


End file.
